
Thanks to the Mill Valley Film Festival, I was able to see The Girl King (2015), a film that takes on the biography of inquisitive, role-defying Queen Christina of Sweden. The story has been told a few times before, most notably with Greta Garbo starring in Queen Christina (1933). This new version sticks much closer to the historical facts, while trying to find an emotional understanding in the characters that brings the story more into the modern era. It’s a valiant effort, not always successful, but not cliched, trite, or predicable as often happens with inward-looking interpretations of historical tales. As the Finnish director Mika Kaurismäki said, “The Girl King is not intended as a traditional epic costume film but as an intense, actor-centered, psychological drama about one of the most interesting and mysterious personalities of all time.”

While the movie begins with the death of Christina’s father, King Gustav II, most of the action takes place in the 1650s, from Christina’s coronation through her abdication in 1654. The film gives a rough outline of the history of Christina’s life, covering all the major points with decent accuracy. Her mother was crazy, her father’s councilor practically bullied Christina (spelled with a “K” in this movie and played by Malin Buska) as a ruler, while she was very studious and loved the hell out of reading books, she even studied with René Decartes for a time, although they weren’t BFFs (and yes, he died in Sweden, but of natural causes, and I doubt he was a surgeon either).

The romantic relationship between Christina and her lady in waiting, Countess Ebba Sparre (Sarah Gadon) is a central part of the film, but it’s a slow build to a mild spark, not exactly the hot girl-on-girl action the previews might hint at. Honestly, it’s a lot more believable in the historical context the way this movie portrays their relationship. There’s even a hint that the queen took advantage of power dynamics to get her way with “la belle comtesse.” But her lesbian or bisexual tendencies are the least of her worries, since she’s not fully committed to Lutheranism and she’s depleting the country’s coffers by buying books and art.

OK, OK, go read the Wikipedia page on Queen Christina, because really, the movie hits all the highlights mentioned there — just adding a bunch of Decartes text in the form of letters that are meant to give Deep Meaningful Insight into the queen. It’s clunky in places and sweet in others. YMMV. Let’s talk about the costumes, shall we?

The Costumes in The Girl King
The movie was filmed mostly in Finland and a little bit in Germany, and the director and crew are mostly Finnish. Costume designer Marjatta Nissinen has primarily worked in Finnish film and TV, and while that includes a few period pieces, I get the impression that this was her first big historical production. I also get the impression that the budget wasn’t super high for The Girl King — some of the fabric choices struck me as less than historically accurate, there’s an overall lack of layers to the outfits, garments have minimal or odd trimming, hats are floppy and missing wired edges, and there seemed to be a rationing of hairpins on set. Despite these nitpicks, the overall look fits the 1650s period and is appropriate to the mood of the film and the characters.

What I found especially nice was the obvious references to period portraits of Queen Christina and Countess Ebba Sparre in the movie costumes. The designer didn’t go off into fantasyland, she used actual source material. The execution may suffer due to budget constraints, but you can clearly see the historical influences, and I really appreciate that.


Christina wears women’s gowns for formal occasions and men’s pants and vests at other times. There are a few scenes where the pants look terribly modern — from skinny leggings (maybe leather?) to wide palazzo pants, instead of historical breeches. But her gowns have a good historical silhouette, though I’m not convinced about the neckline placement on her or any of the women’s gowns. The bodices do appear to be boned, and in various undressing scenes, no corset or stays are worn underneath (also, no smock / shift / chemise, ouch). The only corset / stays that are shown in the film are worn by Christina over a man’s shirt with man’s pants when she’s fencing. It’s not the most historically accurate look (I think it should be smock, corset, then shirt), but I can totally see why it’s worn this way for the film — it gives a very gender-bending impression of a “girl king.”


Other costumes of note include those worn by Christina’s mother (Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg played by Martina Gedeck). She’s certifiably insane, both historically and in the movie, so she gets really wacky clothes to make her mental state clear. The ginormous ruffs she wears when mourning King Gustav and to Christina’s coronation were out of fashion, so it makes her look suitably loony. And the bright red ensemble she wears to harangue Christina about getting married is gorgeously ridiculous.











Overall, The Girl King is a solid biopic of an unusual historical figure, featuring mostly well-realized historical costumes. It’s worth watching primarily because the topic, time period, and setting are rarely seen on film, and this production was done with care by a team highly invested in the story (even if the budget investment was small). Neither an American or UK wide-release date have been confirmed yet, and the movie is currently on the film festival circuit. News sources suggest that The Girl King might be distributed to theaters in December 2015 or spring 2016, so keep an eye out!
Find this frock flick at:
The spelling makes sense, it’s Kristina in Swedish as well. Might have to check this out, she’s one of our most interesting royals. Controversial photographer Elisabeth Ohlson Wallin created a wonderful set of photographic portrayals depicting three historical Swedish monarchs as queer icons a couple of years back, Kristina was one of the, of course: http://www.armemuseum.se/utstallningar/tidigare-utstallningar/king-queen–queer/
Fascinating! Thanks for the link.
Thanks for the recommendation. Christina of Sweden was an interesting person and your review makes that clear. The movie sounds worthwhile. I’ve seen the Garbo one but it was years ago. This sounds more true to history. But does it show her conversion to Catholicism?
This movie does feel closer to the history than the Garbo movie (tho’ I love Garbo’s movie for, well, Garbo!). And it does cover Kristina’s conversion — she even wrestles with Lutheranism as a child; not sure how accurate that is, but it works as foreshadowing in the story.
Certainly a worthy subject for a new film. Looking forward.The rapiers looked right in the fencing scene. Gustav Adolph carried several swords, mostly of the type with Pappenheimer hilts, all of which are in museums.
I get the impression that the costumer & production designers studied everything extant in the Swedish Royal Armory, where many items of Queen Christina’s time are still available :)
Actually, the sword Christina uses is a bad copy of the actual sword of King Gustavus Adolphus with a blade that is much too thin for the period.
http://susimetsa.blogspot.fi/2011/09/sword-of-gustavus-adolphus.html
I’ve seen two Pappenheimer hilt rapiers carried by Gus, but Kristina wouldn’t have had the use of either for fencing practice. There were any number of rapier types at the, time, but by the latter half of the 17th century, they were getting shorter and lighter. One would assume that blunted blades were used for practice, nobody wanting to kill the royals. Hilts were also getting simpler in design.
The problem here is that – if I’m not mistaken – the sword in the movie is actually _meant_ to be Gustavus Adolphus’ sword (not sure though, I’ll only go and see the movie tonight). Nevertheless, the blade in this Hanwei “reproduction” is clearly of a later period (much bendier than period blades) and the sword in whole is about 500 grams lighter than the original.
I think Gustavus’s weapon is mounted with a sword blade, rather than a rapier blade, which was often done at the time. I’m going to see if I can find a good article on swords for this column, or write something myself. At that time, people might practice with live blades, but they would be somehow blunted, or ‘foiled’
Rapier was not such a strict category back in those days as it is today. Narrower blades were used by civilians, but in war the cavalry naturally preferred the wider blades of pappenheimers and such swords – that might be called sword rapiers these days. But that’s beside the point. Here’s a nice article about the original sword and its failed reproduction:
https://myarmoury.com/review_casi_gustav.html
As I noted here & in my interview with the costume designer — https://frockflicks.com/interview-costume-designer-girl-king/ — they had a very limited budget, altho’ they did a lot of research. So it was a balance of trying to show what would look relatively period on limited resources, & I think they did a good job.
Yes, I just saw the film yesterday evening and I was pretty impressed with what they had done. I could forgive them for the sword, in fact. ;)
It would have been great if they had had a bit more money for set decoration, though.
Susi– Bill Grandy pretty much knows whereof he speaks. As you note, the definitions of weapons types were far looser than than now. Somewhere I know I have seen a picture of Gus’s other Pappenheimer
If you find it, I’d be eager to see it!
Are you kidding? Like a lot of young Swedish nerd girls me and a few friends had high hopes about this film. The trailer seemed EPIC, but it was just… wow… the cheesiest thing I’ve seen for years. Kristina is some kind of a queer icon in Sweden, especially among women, and this movie made her totally ridiculous and without any agency of her own.
Plus the costumes really, really bother me.
I’m sad about this, because I looked so much forward to this film.
How nice to see her in film! One of my ancestors was actually knighted by Queen Christina and granted some land in Finland. There’s a bit of a family tradition of Maria as a middle name, taken from the name she used after moving to Italy and converting to the catholic faith: Maria Alexander.
The whole film is sometimes boring and sometimes stupid. The catholics murdered René Descartes – the old philosopher – just to get Kristina catholic and abandon her throne? The costumes were looking often very bad especiallly of Karl Gustav. I asked myself: “Did he lost the laps of his doublet in Germany?” Some hats were very ugly too in a period of very cool looking hats… It was obvious to me, that the figures who have no idea about Martin Luther at all are talking about him as he was a calvinist! They got the whole religious aspect wrong and that’s even more important as they are always talking about it.
Apparently Gustave lost pieces of his clothing all over Europe. His valet must have been sleeping on the job.